


Sympathy of Wolves

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Dracula's eldest bride, her relationship with Dracula, and her feelings for Jonathan Harker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sympathy of Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Beth Winter

 

 

**Sympathy of Wolves**

I was the first.

Our love was to have been a story to last through the ages, a triumph of the heart over   
damnation. He promised me forever, offering his own brutal version of darkness in   
eternal starlight and war songs in place of romantic poetry. He stirred the heat in my   
blood even as he destroyed my life and emptied my soul.

We barely lasted a century, our passion smothered by the monotony of a peaceful age.

I was also the last. He did not court any of my sisters who followed; he saw and wanted   
and simply took them and left them to wake cold and thirsty and dead in my arms. I gave   
them kisses and some comfort. We loved each other, my sisters and I.

To Him, we might as well have been animals. He believed himself our Master and used   
the power of his blood to keep us locked away, half-starving and unable to fight,   
releasing us only when we were nearly insane and willing to devour anything in our path.

Once, displeased by the sound of our voices when he wanted silence, He fed us nothing   
for weeks until our youngest began to pull out her beautiful dark hair, strand by strand,   
thinking to weave it into a pattern that would restore His love.

He killed her for that, for making ugly that which belonged to Him. He cut off her legs   
and her arms and slowly impaled her while she begged forgiveness. Once she was   
secure, He walked away. Forgiveness and mercy withheld, unattainable, her crying   
turned to howling. She screamed throughout her one last, dark night while the wolves   
sang in sympathy.

I listened for hours to that glorious symphony, my dead heart crying for my beloved sister   
even as the hunger inside me rejoiced, excited by the cruelty which would have led to   
satiation of my great thirst, had the victim been human. I wondered, admiring, at the   
great care He had taken to drive the wooden stake through her body without touching her   
heart or stealing her voice, for that was the touch of His true love, just as the tendernesses   
of my past were His violence.

He came to me then and brought an end to my fast by throwing not the usual weak,   
diseased child at my feet but a feast, a strong young man whose hair was as golden as my   
own. This offering looked like my own son might have, so very long ago, had I been   
allowed to live to have one. The point was not lost on me.

I did not dare look at Him as I spoke but rather at the fear and rising lust in the eyes of the   
boy at my feet.

"The people have a story. They say that once, long ago, two monks arrived here, at this   
very castle, and you showed them a sight such as this," I gestured to my suffering,   
tortured sister. "They claim that you asked those monks what they, as men of God,   
thought of the spectacle."

"Peasants remember the strangest things." He sounded amused, in a far better mood than   
he had seemed in ages. "I believe I do recall something of the sort. One of them, in fear   
of his own life, told me that it was God's will that I should punish wrongdoing. The   
other, braver than the first, rejected my actions as unholy."

"Which of the monks did you kill?" Finally, I looked up at him.

He laughed, coldly and viciously, his eyes burning hellfire, and for a moment I was alive   
again, young and whole and in love. "Surely by now you should know me well enough   
to answer that question on your own."

He took my hand, brought it to his lips and bit into it sharply. I was so dry that not a   
single drop spilled, though he worried my hand until the wound was quite large. "You   
hunger. Enjoy your dinner now. The nights are growing regretfully brief and the sun   
will be up all too soon."

He left me there and when my sister and I arose the next evening, our other sister was   
dead, burned to ash by the rising sun. Barely a decade passed before she was replaced.   
We were never more than three, over the years, although at times we were fewer, when   
one had displeased.

Seasons passed barely noticed and with them the tales of our horror grew, fact and legend   
both. Few of them were true. Our world was shrinking, our power faded, and we could   
not have risked the anger of even the common peasants should they have chosen to unite   
against us.

Our captivity rankled His great pride, and He sought escape in stories of the world, in the   
tales of the gypsies and in books in every language spoken on Earth, which we were   
forced to learn as well. He grew fixated on England, on London, longing to be in the   
centre of a growing, thriving empire once more.

Longing turned to obsession which would not be denied. He corresponded with solicitors   
and tradespeople, and after many false starts, he eventually invited a stranger from   
England to our home. Educated - soft, we believed him at first - this man Harker was not   
to know of our presence.

From the first, Harker was a mystery and a temptation to us. Never seen, but we could   
hear him every moment: his sighs and whispers; the scratch of his writing and rustle of   
pages in his book; and the constant, steady beat of his heart. It thrummed with the   
promise of sweet blood, gently at times, but it would jump and begin to race quite   
suddenly, telling us through the fear of Harker's instinct when He was near.

The living are never silent.

His scent, too, succulent, virile and strong, tortured us when the drafty breezes slithered   
through the chinks in old stone walls, until it felt as though the castle itself breathed the   
promise of human intoxication our every waking moment.

My sisters, younger and more vulnerable to the pangs of their thirst, came to live only for   
Harker. That first night, they huddled as primitives around a fire, seeking the slightest   
radiant sensation of him. Overwhelmed at odd intervals by sheer want, they hurled   
themselves against the stone walls, spreading their essence out to receive as much of the   
sound and scent, the taste of him on the air, as they could. Eventually, unsated, they   
collapsed back in upon themselves, weeping, only to try again when their desire grew too   
great.

I was far from immune to this fascination. As early as Harker's second night within our   
castle, I sat the night through with my sisters in one corner, where the sounds of their   
conversation were the loudest. We were perfectly still and silent so that we could hear   
each word with perfect clarity over the rustling of mice and the buzzing of flies.

Harker hadn't more than the slightest suspicion of his danger yet, and for hours he sat and   
spoke with Him naturally and at ease. Question followed question in His effort to   
understand the strange ways of the English, to which Harker responded patiently, his   
voice soft and low and beautiful.

"You will forgive me if it is not polite to ask this, my friend, but you have mentioned a   
woman," He asked, raising his voice slightly and speaking clearly, mocking. He knew I   
would be listening and what I craved to hear. "Is she to be yours?"

"My fiancé is her own," Harker corrected, the expected defensiveness in his tone mixed   
with a hint of a natural smug assumption of superiority, a pride that was always present   
when he spoke of his home country and way of life. That pride gave him honour in our   
eyes, in His eyes, and was yet another reason He had chosen London for His own out of   
all the places in the world.

"I see. Here it is weak, unthinkable, for a man to lose control of his womenfolk."

The gibe served its purpose. Indignantly, Harker responded: "In England, we do not fear   
our women. I will be the head and master of my house with Mina at my side, my mate   
and my partner, not my slave."

I had never wanted to be a slave, not even for Him, yet I had been taught from childhood   
that such was the price of a worthy man's love.

"You are young yet, Jonathan Harker." He laughed, amused.

Harker shifted the topic slightly, his voice sharp: "Have you ever been married?"

"Yes. I have been married twice and widowed the same." His voice became rich with a   
false sorrow to which the sentimental Englishman could not help but respond.

"Is that true?" Our youngest sister clutched at my arm and though it grated, I gave up   
listening to their conversation for the moment. She had only been with us a few short   
years and there was much about Him she had yet to learn.

"Yes," I said, shaking her off, speaking so softly that the breath of my voice would not   
even disturb the motes of dust hanging in the thick air. "His first wife threw herself from   
the roof rather than face ravishment by the Turks."

"She feared them so much?"

"No, she was afraid of His punishment for her infidelity if she were returned to His   
hands. No one knows what became of his second wife."

Our other sister hissed briefly in anger, tired of the interruption. We resumed listening,   
but the topic had changed. What Harker's plans were for his beloved Mina, I would   
never know, although I would have undergone any amount of nameless torments to take   
her place just the same.

We grew to love Harker far beyond desire and craving for nourishment. Our sweet   
Englishman was filled in equal measures with a great, quiet strength and a gentleness the   
like of which we had never seen. In the way of our kind, our thoughts, our dreams often   
mingled with his, and we would while away our long, motionless days in the sweet   
visions of his fantasies.

For if the living are never silent, the dead never truly rest.

Harker had been our guest for scarce a fortnight when he found his way to us, found a   
door that was imperfectly locked and forced his way through into our chambers. With   
our softest touches on his mind, with our sweetest, faintest songs, we invited him to take   
his rest with us, to join us and be our own.

He succumbed, never knowing he fought. Only then did we dare reveal ourselves to him,   
shy as virgins, bold in our love, afraid that he would be overwhelmed by our death and   
care nothing for our beauty. But he saw us, and he reacted as a man.

My sisters urged me forward, insisting I act first, as was my right as the eldest. The   
gesture touched me, for I knew how deeply their love for Harker ran.

I approached their offering, my entire body singing with delight, craving him and half   
crazed by anticipated ecstasy while Harker watched me through his lashes. There were   
no thoughts of his Mina now.

Before I managed even a taste of Harker on my tongue, _He_ burst in, throwing me   
from my rightful prey, commanding my sisters to stay back. How I loathed Him then as I   
never had before, so selfish was He that even my love was to be denied me.

I mocked Him, and in the anger of His reply I saw the truth both men would deny, that   
He had claimed Harker not as a servant, but as a brother to us, that Harker had come to   
represent everything He loved about the new world He sought. He promised us Harker's   
kisses, but I knew from the depths of my immortal, damned soul, that Harker's kisses   
would be as cold and comfortless as our own before we would ever receive one.

However, He fed us that night, a healthy child for once, and it was almost enough.

Harker should not have remembered a thing, but he surprised us in this as well. For at the   
last moment, he escaped, the only man ever to leave His captivity alive. The wolves   
were forbidden to give chase, as were my sisters and I, and I longed to match their howl   
of frustration with one of my own. However, He had decided that Harker was far too   
interesting a prey to share, especially when He had time and the world on His side. For   
the moment, it was enough that His spies reported on Harker's every move and word   
throughout his convalescence.

Finally, the time came when He was ready to leave us for His beloved England. I   
wondered what was to become of my sisters and myself. I think I knew, somehow, that   
there would be no new beginning for us.

I waited silently until He had climbed onto the carriage and only then did I speak: "Those   
monks - you killed them both. One for his fear and the other for subversion."

He inclined his head to me slightly once, smiling cruelly. "Farewell."

I returned to the castle, determined to find a way to free us from our prison. However, it   
was too easy for us to bask in our newfound peace, to lure the unwary to our castle and   
feed to our still hearts' content. There seemed to be no reason to hurry, after all.

Eventually those pleasures would have palled, but He was forced to return much too   
soon. With him, hunting and hunted, came an old man and a new sister, the very Mina of   
whom our Harker had dreamt. Her death was marked upon her forehead, though His kiss   
devoured her much too slowly. His love and jealousy must have been great to visit such   
a torment upon the woman.

The old man beside her could not help her. He had no idea of her suffering, and so my   
sisters and I called her to us, offering her our comfort and our love. She fought, not yet   
resigned to her fate, hiding behind the very symbols of the Heaven which had turned a   
blind eye to her innocence and marked her.

The next day we watched, fully awake yet trapped in our own dead bodies, as the old   
man crept into our sanctuary. He gazed upon my sister's unmoving countenance, and I   
had a moment of wild hope that he would be enchanted by her and we should all be   
spared. However in her pain and despair at that moment our sister Mina gave a low cry,   
awakening the old man, and our salvation was lost. He did not pause again as he looked   
upon us all, and never faltered as he defiled His resting place.

He came to me. I could not move, could not fight or plead for my life. The last thing I   
saw were the old man's blue eyes, filled with fear and revulsion and pity. I thought for a   
moment I could hear the wolves howling outside, even though I knew they do not sing   
during the daylight.

I was the first to die.

(End)

 _Notes:_ Happy Yuletide, Beth Winter! I wasn't familiar with your other fandoms,   
so couldn't write in them. However, I completely share your feelings on that movie - I'd   
actually managed to repress any memory it at all until I saw your post. :) Also, I love the   
beginning of the book as well and that is what inspired this piece, which hopefully still   
contains enough elements of your request to please despite the unusual POV.

 


End file.
